Hedley Thomas reports: Australians seeking confidential DNA paternity tests to establish the parentage of their children have been outed online in a major privacy breach at Australia’s largest drug and alcohol testing company. Other sensitive data accidentally disclosed by the national company, Medvet, also compromise the privacy of hundreds of people who have confidentially ordered…
Category: Health Data
N.H. medical board cites additional violations by doctor
Matthew Spolar reports: The State Board of Medicine added to its critical review of a Tilton doctor yesterday, announcing another $87,900 in fines for professional misconduct while she practiced at the Riverfront Medical Group. Dr. Susan Hare, already fined thousands of dollars and banned from practicing medicine for previous ethics issues, was cited for an…
An unintended exposure leads to a mea culpa from an online psychiatry journal
When the editors of Psychiatric Times were alerted that they had inadvertently revealed some names and email addresses of those who responded to a survey on ethical dilemmas, they did the right thing. In a letter dated June 10 on their web site, they wrote: Dear Readers, Not long ago, we posted a survey on…
Hospital employee and three others accused of stealing patients' identities
Meredith Cohn reports: A federal grand jury has indicted four people, including a former employee of the University of Maryland Medical Center, in what prosecutors said was a scheme to steal patients’ identities. The 17-count indictment was unsealed Thursday after the arrests of Kenneth Elliott McDowell, 47; Wendy Hinton, 21; and William White, 54, all…
Lawsuit alleges Tufts faxed patient records to workplace, without permission
Chelsea Conaboy reports on an alleged breach that reminds us that everyone’s privacy counts, and every breach – even a simple mistake – can have devastating consequences for the patient: A patient of Tufts Medical Center has filed a case against the hospital and a primary care doctor there alleging that documents including her medical…
(update) 357 people affected by documents stolen from Wake Forest Baptist
Richard Craver reports: Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has told the state Attorney General’s office that 357 individuals have been affected by a security breach involving missing documents, some of which contained Social Security and medical-records numbers. On June 1, a statement from the center said it fired an employee, Linda Bowden Turner, who had…